19,892 research outputs found
Multilayer Graph-Based Trajectory Planning for Race Vehicles in Dynamic Scenarios
Trajectory planning at high velocities and at the handling limits is a
challenging task. In order to cope with the requirements of a race scenario, we
propose a far-sighted two step, multi-layered graph-based trajectory planner,
capable to run with speeds up to 212~km/h. The planner is designed to generate
an action set of multiple drivable trajectories, allowing an adjacent behavior
planner to pick the most appropriate action for the global state in the scene.
This method serves objectives such as race line tracking, following, stopping,
overtaking and a velocity profile which enables a handling of the vehicle at
the limit of friction. Thereby, it provides a high update rate, a far planning
horizon and solutions to non-convex scenarios. The capabilities of the proposed
method are demonstrated in simulation and on a real race vehicle.Comment: Accepted at The 22nd IEEE International Conference on Intelligent
Transportation Systems, October 27 - 30, 201
Grasping unknown objects in clutter by superquadric representation
© 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.In this paper, a quick and efficient method is presented for grasping unknown objects in clutter. The grasping method relies on real-time superquadric (SQ) representation of partial view objects and incomplete object modelling, well suited for unknown symmetric objects in cluttered scenarios which is followed by optimized antipodal grasping. The incomplete object models are processed through a mirroring algorithm that assumes symmetry to first create an approximate complete model and then fit for SQ representation. The grasping algorithm is designed for maximum force balance and stability, taking advantage of the quick retrieval of dimension and surface curvature information from the SQ parameters. The pose of the SQs with respect to the direction of gravity is calculated and used together with the parameters of the SQs and specification of the gripper, to select the best direction of approach and contact points. The SQ fitting method has been tested on custom datasets containing objects in isolation as well as in clutter. The grasping algorithm is evaluated on a PR2 robot and real time results are presented. Initial results indicate that though the method is based on simplistic shape information, it outperforms other learning based grasping algorithms that also work in clutter in terms of time-efficiency and accuracy.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Compressive Mining: Fast and Optimal Data Mining in the Compressed Domain
Real-world data typically contain repeated and periodic patterns. This
suggests that they can be effectively represented and compressed using only a
few coefficients of an appropriate basis (e.g., Fourier, Wavelets, etc.).
However, distance estimation when the data are represented using different sets
of coefficients is still a largely unexplored area. This work studies the
optimization problems related to obtaining the \emph{tightest} lower/upper
bound on Euclidean distances when each data object is potentially compressed
using a different set of orthonormal coefficients. Our technique leads to
tighter distance estimates, which translates into more accurate search,
learning and mining operations \textit{directly} in the compressed domain.
We formulate the problem of estimating lower/upper distance bounds as an
optimization problem. We establish the properties of optimal solutions, and
leverage the theoretical analysis to develop a fast algorithm to obtain an
\emph{exact} solution to the problem. The suggested solution provides the
tightest estimation of the -norm or the correlation. We show that typical
data-analysis operations, such as k-NN search or k-Means clustering, can
operate more accurately using the proposed compression and distance
reconstruction technique. We compare it with many other prevalent compression
and reconstruction techniques, including random projections and PCA-based
techniques. We highlight a surprising result, namely that when the data are
highly sparse in some basis, our technique may even outperform PCA-based
compression.
The contributions of this work are generic as our methodology is applicable
to any sequential or high-dimensional data as well as to any orthogonal data
transformation used for the underlying data compression scheme.Comment: 25 pages, 20 figures, accepted in VLD
A Novel Euler's Elastica based Segmentation Approach for Noisy Images via using the Progressive Hedging Algorithm
Euler's Elastica based unsupervised segmentation models have strong
capability of completing the missing boundaries for existing objects in a clean
image, but they are not working well for noisy images. This paper aims to
establish a Euler's Elastica based approach that properly deals with random
noises to improve the segmentation performance for noisy images. We solve the
corresponding optimization problem via using the progressive hedging algorithm
(PHA) with a step length suggested by the alternating direction method of
multipliers (ADMM). Technically, all the simplified convex versions of the
subproblems derived from the major framework of PHA can be obtained by using
the curvature weighted approach and the convex relaxation method. Then an
alternating optimization strategy is applied with the merits of using some
powerful accelerating techniques including the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and
generalized soft threshold formulas. Extensive experiments have been conducted
on both synthetic and real images, which validated some significant gains of
the proposed segmentation models and demonstrated the advantages of the
developed algorithm
BSP-fields: An Exact Representation of Polygonal Objects by Differentiable Scalar Fields Based on Binary Space Partitioning
The problem considered in this work is to find a dimension independent algorithm for the generation of signed scalar fields exactly representing polygonal objects and satisfying the following requirements: the defining real function takes zero value exactly at the polygonal object boundary; no extra zero-value isosurfaces should be generated; C1 continuity of the function in the entire domain. The proposed algorithms are based on the binary space partitioning (BSP) of the object by the planes passing through the polygonal faces and are independent of the object genus, the number of disjoint components, and holes in the initial polygonal mesh. Several extensions to the basic algorithm are proposed to satisfy the selected optimization criteria. The generated BSP-fields allow for applying techniques of the function-based modeling to already existing legacy objects from CAD and computer animation areas, which is illustrated by several examples
Solution Path Clustering with Adaptive Concave Penalty
Fast accumulation of large amounts of complex data has created a need for
more sophisticated statistical methodologies to discover interesting patterns
and better extract information from these data. The large scale of the data
often results in challenging high-dimensional estimation problems where only a
minority of the data shows specific grouping patterns. To address these
emerging challenges, we develop a new clustering methodology that introduces
the idea of a regularization path into unsupervised learning. A regularization
path for a clustering problem is created by varying the degree of sparsity
constraint that is imposed on the differences between objects via the minimax
concave penalty with adaptive tuning parameters. Instead of providing a single
solution represented by a cluster assignment for each object, the method
produces a short sequence of solutions that determines not only the cluster
assignment but also a corresponding number of clusters for each solution. The
optimization of the penalized loss function is carried out through an MM
algorithm with block coordinate descent. The advantages of this clustering
algorithm compared to other existing methods are as follows: it does not
require the input of the number of clusters; it is capable of simultaneously
separating irrelevant or noisy observations that show no grouping pattern,
which can greatly improve data interpretation; it is a general methodology that
can be applied to many clustering problems. We test this method on various
simulated datasets and on gene expression data, where it shows better or
competitive performance compared against several clustering methods.Comment: 36 page
Flexible Multi-layer Sparse Approximations of Matrices and Applications
The computational cost of many signal processing and machine learning
techniques is often dominated by the cost of applying certain linear operators
to high-dimensional vectors. This paper introduces an algorithm aimed at
reducing the complexity of applying linear operators in high dimension by
approximately factorizing the corresponding matrix into few sparse factors. The
approach relies on recent advances in non-convex optimization. It is first
explained and analyzed in details and then demonstrated experimentally on
various problems including dictionary learning for image denoising, and the
approximation of large matrices arising in inverse problems
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